Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Rajesh pointed to Red Herring's Asia finalists few weeks back. Now Redherring has published the 2005 Asia Top 100 List. The article notes, that Asia is rapidly becoming a hotbed of entrepreneurial innovation, as venture investment - and this list - reflect. These 100 companies reflect the entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping Asia. Together, the 100 winners raised slightly less than $1 billion in funding and had sales of $1.25 billion. The top-grossing company in the list was Beijing Xinwei Telecom Technology, which claimed $200 million in annual revenue. There are also several promising companies in what is euphemistically called “pre-revenue” stage.

Winners came from 11 countries, including from Kazakhstan, the home of Asia Software (whose 4,500 employees made it the largest company on our list), Pakistan, which contributed two companies, and Malaysia, with one. China provided the most companies on the list (41), followed by India (19) and South Korea (10).The Asian companies show some important differences from our European and North American lists. Some key points:- More than 25 percent of the Asian startups are Internet service companies as against only 16 percent in 2005 North American list - The lack of experience in management teams & limited serial entrepreneurs leading their second or third companies in Asia , contrasted from what is seen in the US & Europe. - Asian companies had more employees, an average of 352 per company (thrown off by Asia Software), compared to 115 for their U.S. counterparts.- Sixty-three percent of the companies on this list said they were profitable, far more than the 38 percent on this year’s North American list. Its good to see that organised entrepreneurism is in the rise in Asia.After all entreprneurism is an important indicator for economic growth.